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SharePoint 2013 allows you to use eDiscovery and compliance features to manage and recover evidence used in civil litigations, as well as manage the records for your enterprise. Being such a powerful web based platform, you can create various sites (similar to web sites) within the SharePoint environment.

Before deploying SharePoint Server eDiscovery features, an important consideration, however, is to plan the search service application infrastructure for your organization. E-Discovery uses search service applications (SSAs) to crawl SharePoint farms. You can configure SSAs in many ways, but the most common way is to have a central search services farm that crawls multiple SharePoint farms. You can use this one search service to crawl all SharePoint content, or you can use it to crawl specific regions, for example, all SharePoint content in Europe.

The way it works is simple: To crawl a SharePoint farm, search first uses a service application proxy to connect to it. The eDiscovery Center uses the proxy connection to send preservations to SharePoint sites in other SharePoint farms.

Key features and APIs in eDiscovery include:

Case Manager, which enables records managers to create and manage enterprise-wide discovery projects, place potentially large amounts and various types of content on hold, and preserve a snapshot of content.

Enterprise-wide access, which includes the ability to put content on hold and to search for content from a central location. It also includes the ability to conduct searches, access SharePoint content, and place content on hold in any configured SharePoint location.

In-Place Holds, which enables an attorney to preserve a snapshot of content while ensuring that users can continue to make changes without disturbing the state of the content snapshot.

Analytics, which enable attorneys, administrators, and records managers to collect and analyze data about eDiscovery activity.

Invariably, the logical answer to coping up with Big Data with regards to eDiscovery is Predictive Coding. While definitions of predictive coding vary, but a common form includes uploading electronic documents to a server followed by taking representative samples, and ‘Seed Sets’ are created by attorneys who are familiar with the legal issues of the case. Attorneys, then, review the seed sets and code each document for responsiveness or other attributes, such as privilege or confidentiality. Utilizing a re-iterative approach, predictive coding software is tweaked and adjusted regarding how the computer will analyze future documents.

Recently, a U.S. Tax Court gave permission to use predictive coding in Dynamo Holdings, Ltd. vs. Commissioner, 143 T.C. No. 9 (September, 17, 2014) case, whereby permitting a taxpayer to use predictive coding as a first-pass review of a large set of documents, despite the. Apparently, the big idea is to reduce costs. While respondents in this case asserted predictive coding to be an ‘unproven technology’, the court completely disagreed justifying this by citing several precedents along with an expert testimony. Predictive coding contains two important elements known as ‘Recall’ and ‘Precision’ – I have detailed these concepts in my earlier post. Inspite of this, the court’s opinion is important for taxpayers faced with requests for a substantial amount of ESI, and has the potential to reduce costs that may easily run into millions of dollars.

This reaffirms one thing for sure – IT, which was once considered a necessary evil, is now evolving to form a symbiotic relationship with the legal industry, and with other industries alike. Manual document review is certainly going to be obsolete in the near future – if not already! Analytics, predictive coding, machine learning products and technologies providing us with business intelligence (BI) to make informed decisions. For example, Microsoft’s newest products such as Delve, along with host of BI tools provide meanings to your data, while SharePoint e-Discovery center adheres to the regulatory compliance and standards. With this said, predictive coding technology is essentially replacing manual work, and tech savvy attorneys seem to have a ball with one!

The important aspect in this regard lies with determining the optimal values for ‘recall’ and ‘precision’ within the predictive coding software!

U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) require organizations to look at the ability to respond in a legally defensible manner to discovery requests. Moreover, as organizations expand globally, they need to be ready at all times to provide information that could be requested as evidence in a legal proceeding. Internal or external auditors are in the best position to recommend policies and best practices that can prepare organizations to respond to a data discovery request. The auditors must:

Determine the effectiveness of the e-Discovery communication plan

Document the IT environment

Regularly review backup, retention, and data destruction policies

Review compliance with document destruction procedures, when a litigation hold is issued

Document the steps that will be taken to respond to e-discovery requests

During litigation, determine whether employees are preserving the integrity of relevant material

Review existing backup controls, reports, and inventories of media stored off site

Failing to prepare for an e-discovery request can result in sanctions. Organizations need to have a litigation readiness policy and plan in place to effectively deal with lawsuits. Auditors play a pivotal role in managing litigation risks and help organizations take a proactive approach to e-Discovery by recommending strategies that address key data preservation, storage, destruction, and recovery disquiets. Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and M-Files, for instance, offer e-Discovery and content management solutions to cater to these needs.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a management concept in which companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their stakeholders. The basic definition according to Wiki:

“Corporate social responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms”

CSR is best incorporated with the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ (TBL) approach, which is essentially an accounting framework incorporating three dimensions of performance: financial, social, and environmental.

Triple Bottom Line

A triple bottom line measures the company’s economic value, ‘people account’ – which measures the company’s degree of social responsibility and the company’s ‘planet account’ – which measures the company’s environmental responsibility. While CSR indoctrination within the e-Discovery industry may be prevalent, only a handful of companies may actually have developed and adopted CSR.

Adopting to a mindset of a good corporate citizen, at ClayDesk, we have initiated the development of a CSR program with a goal of embedding CSR practices in our business. The foremost area of focus for CSR initiatives are directed towards promotion of legal education, e-Discovery laws, Pro-Bono legal work, sponsor a student, and steps towards a paperless (go-green) environment. These steps will bring about positive change and improve the quality of life of members of the society.

Some of the core CSR issues relate to: environmental management, eco-efficiency, responsible sourcing, stakeholder engagement, labor standards and working conditions, employee and community relations, social equity, gender balance, human rights, good governance, and anti-corruption measures. Denmark, for instance, has CSR Law in place which mandates companies to report their CSR initiatives. Apart from providing charity and sponsorship, CSR concept goes beyond by allowing companies the opportunity to become a socially and ethically responsible corporate citizen.

Generally speaking, courts have inherent authority to disqualify parties, representatives, and consultants from participating in litigation. Attorneys, expert witnesses, and litigation consultants may face disqualification motions in the event of a conflict of interest. With the rapid expansion of the eDiscovery industry, however, a new question has arisen: If an eDiscovery vendor has a potential conflict of interest, when should it be disqualified? What standard should apply?

To put the problem in perspective, imagine that you manage discovery at a law firm representing the defendant in a contentious wage and hour dispute, and you recently hired an eDiscovery vendor to assist you in scanning and coding your client’s documents, at a cost of $50,000. Two months later, you receive notice from your vendor that the plaintiff’s counsel has requested its services in connection with the same case. How would you react? Would you expect a court to disqualify the vendor if it accepted the engagement? This scenario occurred in Gordon v. Kaleida Health, resulting in the first judicial order squarely addressing vendor disqualification. The Kaleida Health court ultimately denied the defendant’s motion to disqualify, allowing the vendor to continue participating in the case.

Discussion of Gordon v. Kaleida Health

Kaleida Health arose out of a now commonplace dispute between a hospital and its hourly employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The plaintiffs, a group of hourly employees, sued the defendant, Kaleida Health, a regional hospital system, claiming they were not paid for work time during meal breaks, shift preparation, and required training, in violation of FLSA.

Kaleida Health’s attorneys, Nixon Peabody, LLP (“Nixon”), hired D4 Discovery (“D4”), an eDiscovery vendor, to scan and code documents for use in the litigation. In connection with the work, Nixon and D4 executed a confidentiality agreement. D4 was to “objectively code” the documents using categories based on characteristics of the document, such as the author and the type of document. The coded documents would then be used by Nixon in preparing for upcoming depositions.

Two months later, plaintiffs’ counsel, Thomas & Solomon, LLP (“Thomas”), requested D4 to provide ESI consulting services to it in connection with the same case. D4 notified Nixon, who promptly objected based on the scanning and coding services D4 provided the defendant during the litigation. D4 then provided assurances that Kaleida Health’s documents would not be used in consulting the plaintiffs and that an entirely different group of employees would work with the plaintiffs’ counsel. Nixon, on behalf of Kaleida Health, persisted in its objection to D4 working for the plaintiffs and ultimately filed a motion to disqualify the vendor.

Magistrate Judge Foschio’s analysis began by outlining the standard governing the disqualification of experts and consultants. According to the court, the entity sought to be disqualified must be an expert or a consultant, defined as a “‘source of information and opinions in technical, scientific, medical or other fields of knowledge’” or “one who gives professional advice or services” in that field. After the moving party makes this initial showing, it must meet two further requirements. First, the party’s counsel must have had an “‘objectively reasonable’ belief that a confidential relationship existed with the expert or consultant.” Second, the moving party must also show “that . . . confidential information was ‘actually disclosed’ to the expert or consultant.”

Applying this standard, Judge Foschio ultimately found that because the scanning and objective coding services performed by D4 did not require specialized knowledge or skill and were of a “clerical nature,” D4 was not an “expert” or “consultant.” Further, the court determined that the defendant failed to prove that it provided confidential information to D4 because it did not show “any direct connection between the scanning and coding work . . . and Defendants’ production of [its] ESI.”

Rejecting Kaleida Health’s argument, the court declined to apply to D4 and other eDiscovery vendors the presumption of confidential communications, imputation of shared confidences, and vicarious disqualification applicable in the context of attorney disqualification when a party “switches sides.” The court— as an alternative basis to its finding that D4 did not act as an expert or consultant—held that disqualification was improper because no “prior confidential relationship” existed between Kaleida Health and D4.

Because Kaleida Health represents the first significant attempt at exploring the issues surrounding vendor disqualification, whether later courts should follow Kaleida Health’s lead in exclusively applying the disqualification rules for experts and consultants to vendors becomes the main issue in its wake. To come to a conclusion on this point, one must first explore the different schemes that courts may apply when considering disqualification.

This above excerpt is a part of article originally written by Michael A. Cottone, a candidate for Doctor of Jurisprudence, The University of Tennessee College of Law, May 2014.
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